Bihar titans Nitish and Lalu join hands to fight BJP

Nothing is impossible in Bihar politics. Former chief ministers Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad, who were at loggerheads until the rout of their parties in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, have decided to campaign together in the upcoming by-polls to 10 Assembly seats in the state.

Vashishtha Narayan Singh, the ruling JD-U state president, said his party had already formed a grand alliance with the RJD and Congress to contest the by-elections together.

"The three parties will fight the bypolls together," he said in Patna on Sunday.

Former chief ministers Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav will campaign together for the upcoming Bihar by-polls

"While the JDU and the RJD will contest from four seats each, the Congress will fight from the remaining two constituencies."

Vashishtha reiterated that Nitish and Lalu would campaign together.

Asserting that the alliance was the need of the hour, he said the graph of the BJP had been going down by the day, which was amply reflected in the recent Assembly by-poll results in Uttarakhand, where the Congress won all three seats.

Though Vashishtha declined to divulge the names of the specific seats from where the three parties would contest the by-polls scheduled to be held on August 21, party sources said the JDU would get Jale, Parbatta, Mohania and Hajipur while the RJD would fight from Raj Nagar (reserved), Chapra, Mohiuddinagar and Banka seats.

The Congress will contest from Bhagalpur and Narkatiaganj constituencies.

A formal announcement in this regard is expected to be made after the return of Nitish to Patna on July 30. The former chief minister is now away in Mumbai.

Lalu, who hosted an Iftaar party at his bungalow on Saturday evening, which was attended by a host of JD-U leader, said the grand alliance between the RJD, JD-U and Congress would take on the communal forces.

Sources close to the Bihar heavyweights said Lalu and Nitish had earlier held the seat-sharing talks over phone.